It was a strangely assorted pair, the girl and the man. She was about twenty years of age, with a pretty, earnest, freckled face and a modest air. She was talking happily, with undisguised fondness, to the young man beside her. His face was hideous, without a nose. In its place was a livid scar and a depression perforated by nostrils that made his appearance malign. He wore nothing to conceal the mutilation, shocking as it was. His manner toward the girl was that of a lover, devoted and tender.
"Did you ever see anything so awful?" said Fancy. "And isn't she terribly in love with him though! I know who she is; her name is Fleurette Heller. She came into Granthope's studio once and I took a great liking to her. Frank told her that her love affair would come out all right, and she'd be happier than she ever was in her life before."
"I don't see how she can endure that object," said Cayley.
"Don't you?" said Fancy, "that's because you don't know women. She's in love with him. I understand it perfectly. I wouldn't care a bit how he looked."
She nodded, as she spoke, to a man who passed just then. He was dark-skinned, with a pointed beard. He gave her a quick jerk of the head and grinned, showing a line of yellow teeth, and his glance jumped with the rapidity of machinery from her face to Cayley's, and away again. He walked on, his hands behind his back against a coat so faded and shiny as to glow purple as a plum.
Fancy's eyes followed him. "That's Vixley," she said.
Cayley's look turned from a pretty blonde across the way and he became immediately attentive. "Who's Vixley?"
"Why, Professor Vixley, the slate-writer, you know."
"Oh, yes—he's a medium, is he? What sort is he?"
She shook her head. "Wolf! He makes me sick. I'm afraid of him, too. He's out after Granthope with a knife, and I'm afraid he'll do for him some day. Frank ought never to have stood in with him, but you know he used to live with a friend of this man's when he was little, and they've got a hold on him he can't break very well."